FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT IMMUNE SYSTEM - PAGE 5

The stories I write linger longer in me than their publishing dates. Sometimes concepts remain like riddles in my mind and surprise me with greater stories later on. Here's one: Yanira Barona, a 41-year-old mother from Whitehall, whose story I've followed for the past year. She is awaiting a heart transplant at Penn State-Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Her journey is dramatic for medical and personal reasons. It is also intriguing because it opens the doors to a discussion that is becoming more common in medical circles, the notion that the heart is much more than a pump.

In a recent column, Eugene Schoenfeld, M.D., stated, "There is no evidence for the misguided belief that chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome patients have a problem with their immune system, and all the reliable evidence indicates that they suffer from depression." It is important to REJECT that comment. Dr. Schoenfeld's remarks are very unfair to CFIDS sufferers. It is clear that he is not familiar with either this disorder or the literature on it. In 1995, at the first world meeting on CFIDS in Brussels, Belgium, there was no argument about the validity of the disorder, and evidence was presented indicating characteristic abnormalities of the immune system.

AIDS is not selective. It strikes at will. Its victims are old, young, male or female. Yesterday, two victims spoke about themselves and their lives with the disease. Christina Lewis and David Kamens of Washington, D.C., were the featured speakers at the Northampton Junior and Senior High school PTA AIDS Awareness Week community program yesterday at the senior high school. During the school day they met with students and spoke from experience, with detail and without hesitation.

The film "Beyond Fear," which deals with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and is narrated by Robert Vaughn, will be presented at 7 p.m. Monday in the Nesquehoning Recreation Center, Nesquehoning. The program is being sponsored by the Nesquehoning Recreation Commission in cooperation with the Carbon County Chapter of the American Red Cross. The viewer will be taken through the story of AIDS in three 20-minute segments. They are Virus, the Individual and the Community. The virus that causes AIDS, known as HTLV-III, is among the most deadly to infect humans.

Amy Bendekovits has a personal reason to promote next month's benefit walk for multiple sclerosis. The Northampton native lost her father to the disease three years ago, just before graduating from high school. Now a tourism and hospitality management student at Temple University, she has made it part of her mission to help combat the disease. She recently returned from participating in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Public Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., after winning an essay contest.

It's something most people don't know they have. But someone's myelin can determine whether that person can walk or not or even if he or she lives or dies. In the movie "Lorenzo's Oil," a rare, fatal disease of the myelin, adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, propels the real-life Odone family to scour the world for a cure for their son. But the myelin also is attacked in more common diseases, including multiple sclerosis, or MS, and a form of temporary paralysis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

Terry Fredeking will head into the jungles of Tasmania, a large island off southern Australia, in the dead of night this fall to hunt for devils. If he finds them, he will shave their hairy backs. This may not be easy. "They are not very nice. They have nasty long teeth and the disposition of an elephant with a hangover," Fredeking said. He'll arm himself with a machine gun, machete and nets. But the one thing he will need most is his parasitologist. That's the guy who will tell him whether he has captured his prize: parasites found on the back of the Tasmanian devil, a 3-foot-long carnivorous marsupial.

Cynthia Donlan doesn't just have lupus. She also has asthma, diabetes, kidney disease, arthritis and Crohn's disease. "Lupus attacks every single organ," Donlan said of the chronic condition in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy cells and organs. Many who have it also have other autoimmune diseases. But the 42-year-old Hazleton woman doesn't sit around sulking. Last week, she visited a specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Bethesda, Md., ran a bimonthly support group for about 30 members and helped wrap gift baskets for the fourth annual Taming the Wolf Festival she's organized to educate the region about lupus.

Some people may scoff at the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, but I don't think Jason and Keena Moyer of Kempton would be among them. Nor would the other good folks of Kempton and New Tripoli who are rallying around the Moyers as they battle every parents' worst nightmare: the life-threatening illness of a child. More on the community later, but first I want to tell you a little about 6-year-old Laramie Moyer who was just a typical spunky kid up until about July of last year.